From ship to shore and back again – you can't do it without a gangway

For centuries, Hamburg's port has been its gateway to the world. This port is home to a 175-metre-long bulk goods terminal. A local company processes soybeans and rapeseed into vegetable oil and animal feed. The warehouses along the terminal load up to four bulk carriers with the export goods for the world market.

Viereck GmbH & Co. KG has developed a sophisticated concept for moving the gangway used by the crews and port terminal employees while the freighters are being loaded. For this project, the company used the modular system of Demag drive technology and relied on Demag wheel block systems, frequency inverters and geared motors.

Company

Viereck GmbH & Co. KG in Elmshorn has been focusing on the development, project planning and production of plant engineering and hydraulic systems since 1930. The team also develops the automation of systems and offers a wide range of services such as repairs, rental service and system inspections. The company is also a specialist in plant engineering in explosion-protected areas, such as for drill hole handling on drilling islands or for tanker loading in refineries. Viereck stands for competence in hydraulics.

The fact that some of the systems designed and manufactured by Viereck GmbH & Co. KG are installed in the Port of Hamburg is only natural, given their geographical proximity. Others, however, are in operation worldwide on (cruise and cargo) ships or are operated onshore on all continents. Other typical applications for Viereck hydraulic systems are food production and stage hydraulics. For (electric) heavy-duty drives, the project engineers from Elmshorn rely on the modular system of Demag drive technology. 

Requirement

A company based in the Port of Hamburg processes soybeans and rapeseed into vegetable oil and animal feed. The company operates a bulk goods terminal for loading the quantities produced and other commercial goods such as oilseeds and grain.

The 175-metre-long terminal offers berthing space for four bulk carriers. Three ship loaders with a capacity of 1000 t/h enable efficient loading and unloading. The quayside silos have a storage capacity of 180,000 tonnes. In addition to ship loaders for bulk cargo handling, as at every terminal, the transport of crew from ship to shore and vice versa must also be guaranteed – safely and flexibly. This task is performed by gangways, and one such gangway was commissioned from Viereck. 

Solution

For the terminal, the gangway needs to be flexible in several dimensions: vertically to accommodate different ship sizes and tidal lift, and also along the quayside of the terminal. As the structure has a considerable dead weight, the railguided drive solution at the terminal had to be designed to be sufficiently powerful. The entire gangway, including the drives, also had to be weatherproof for outdoor use on the waterfront. This meant: corrosion-resistant and extremely robust with a nominal load capacity of at least 30 tonnes.
The Viereck designers opted for a proven solution as a drive combination: The Demag DRS wheel block system with a travel wheel diameter of 400 mm is used for the travel wheels. The wheel blocks can be used in a wide range of applications for heavy-load handling. These are extremely resilient and durable wheels inte-grated in a robust and compact housing.

In the gangway drives, Demag offset gearboxes handle the power transmission and reduction between the speed-controlled electric motors “Made by Demag” and “Made in Germany”. A worldwide proven solution - especially for space-saving heavy-duty drive designs. In this application in the Port of Hamburg, the gangway moves continuously at a maximum of 35 m/min and a positioning speed of 10 m/min. The perfect coordination of the offset geared motor and frequency inverter lays the foundation for the highest precision and the shortest response times when handling the gangway. The precisely controllable Demag drive solution ensures smooth and jerk-free longitudinal movement of the gangway thanks to Demag frequency inverters.

The solution of using the Demag wheel block system for this task was also literally and spatially very close at hand. The loading equipment on the 175-metre-long quay is also moved with the help of the Demag DRS wheel block system. 

Special features

The gangway moves with the help of four DRS 400 wheel blocks in combination with a compact Demag offset geared brake motor and a Demag Dedrive Compact STO frequency inverter.

Due to its robustness, the Demag DRS wheel block system is an all-rounder, so it is not only used as a crane wheel. In transport and drive solutions, wheel blocks are responsible for transferring the power of the motors to the rail or the ground. In heavy-duty trolleys, in high-rise construction (as mobile roof and facade construction, for example of stadiums and swimming pools) or for moving steel structures indoors and outdoors. Demag DRS wheel blocks offer a wide range of variants with a load capacity of up to 40 tonnes per wheel block.

Demag offset geared motors have a wide range of gear ratios and are available in 9 sizes, so that an economical solution with high efficiency can be designed for every requirement. The output range of the torques ranges from 160 to 13,800 Nm for the various gearbox sizes. In this application, the torque arm transfers the required force to the wheel block to move the 30 tonne dead weight.

Demag Drives moves two efficient solutions from Viereck GmbH & Co. KG for loading ships and for safe access for employees. Keeping your business on the move.